-When It Rains-

He did remember her.

He let his friends think that he didn't, it was just easier to not talk about it. He was six years old, six years of memories of having an entire family, one that was happy and that loved each other.

But another 19 years of memories without her.

His father told her and she was sick, but he was too young to understand. To really understand. He thought it was like when he was home sick, that she needed a thermometer and an extra blanket and she could watch TV all day and then she'd be better soon (he tried all of those things), but she was still sick. He brought her his stuffed dog that he pretended he didn't sleep with anymore, it made him feel better when he was sad. He would bring her lunch like she used to. He would have tried anything if it meant that she'd get better.

There were times when her door was shut, and he could hear his father talking. And someone crying. It couldn't have been his father, his father never cried. He knew. He'd sit outside the door and put his ear the crack, and while he couldn't recall what was said, he remembered that he cried too.

It rained when the ambulance came for her. His father took him by the shoulders, and told him that he had to be strong, because that was what she would have wanted. And that even though she had to leave, that she would always love him, and that it was very important that he remember that.

He didn't see the EMT's take her away. Maybe he did, maybe he'd just blocked it out. But he remembered the rain. He remembered how it came in through her window, that was left open the night before, he remembered the floor being soaked and pooling up. He remembered sitting in the puddle of water and watching the flashing lights disappearing down his street.

Watching her disappear.

There was some grand irony in being the Rain Guardian. The thing that took so much away from him was what made him strong. It was a joke that he kept to himself.

Maybe it wasn't the rain that made him strong, maybe it was her.

-Seeing Other People-

They were, effectively, seeing other people. At least that was what they were saying they were doing. But the occasional date with some girl no one in the family knew happened. For the most part, however, they were married to their jobs. Which had been silently agreed upon, was for the best. Nothing ever stuck though. Gokudera complained that women were shallow (Tsuna suggested that maybe it was just the girls he was agreeing to meet. Gokudera just glared.). Yamamoto just said that it just wasn't going to work out, but that she was very nice but he didn't "like her, like her" (Chrome asked, "How do you know if you've only seen her once?" – he just shrugged it off). Whenever excuses were made, it seemed to be at each other's expense. That eye contact was desperately trying to be made to someone across the room who was pointedly looking uninterested. Yamamoto found it hard to lie when he could remember how cold Gokudera's skin was. How goosebumps rose down his spine and what his voice sounded like when he- It wasn't fair to remember those things. Not when Gokudera had made it very clear (every time) that it would never happen again, and how (every time) it was a mistake. That this was just getting his rocks off and Yamamoto was stupid enough to indulge him. Yamamoto could do nothing but agree. He was stupid enough. But nights that he wasn't alone, nights that Gokudera was there, asleep and pressed against his back, cigarette dying slowly in the ashtray, those were the nights he couldn't forget. The ones he replayed in his head, wondering if Gokudera ever did the same thing. He never had his hopes up.